Empowering Vulnerable Girls in STEM - Ukraine

When science meets courage

In Ukraine today, going to school is itself an act of courage. Air-raid alarms interrupt lessons. Blackouts cut off light in the middle of an experiment. And yet, in classrooms across the Kyiv and Sumy regions, girls are mixing chemical reactions, peering into microscopes, programming robots, and asking questions that have no easy answers. This is exactly the kind of spirit the Empowering Vulnerable Girls in STEM project exists to nurture — and in this reporting period, that spirit continued to grow in quiet but meaningful ways.

Impact that outlasts a single quarter

While this reporting period did not see new large-scale program launches, the foundations laid over the past year continue to generate real, measurable outcomes. The STEM classrooms renovated through our partnership with Mondelez Ukraine remain active learning hubs, used daily by more than 300 students in improved environments. More than 40 teachers are now applying practice-based, interdisciplinary methodologies inspired by the training and competitions they participated in. Twenty-one schools across two regions remain engaged with the program's network and learning resources, and 32 STEM lesson plans developed by teachers during the "STEM in Everyday Life" competition continue to be used and shared.

These are not past results — they are a living infrastructure for girls' access to science, one that does not switch off between reporting periods.

A new kind of partnership: when jewelry meets engineering

One of the most exciting developments of this period is a new long-term collaboration with Orxata Transforming Jewelry — a Ukrainian brand founded by a woman engineer, Olena Kucherniuk, whose work sits precisely at the intersection of creativity, precision, and technology. Orxata's philosophy — that engineering talent lives in every woman — aligns naturally with the mission of #GirlsSTEM.

Through this partnership, 10% of net profit from every Orxata jewelry purchase is automatically donated to support girls' STEM education in Ukraine. Customers can also add a voluntary contribution at checkout. Looking ahead to 2026, the brand plans to release a special charity jewelry piece with 100% of profits directed to the project.

This collaboration does something beyond fundraising: it tells girls a story about what a woman in engineering looks like. Not a textbook figure, but a real designer and entrepreneur whose products are worn and admired. That kind of role model is exactly what the research tells us girls in STEM need most.

Additionally, Orxata has co-initiated a new All-Ukrainian competition called "STEM Jewelry", designed to support girls at the very beginning of their STEM journey — helping them see engineering and technology as real, accessible, and even beautiful career paths. Through this initiative, hundreds of girls across Ukraine will have the opportunity to explore STEM disciplines through hands-on experience and take an informed step toward their future profession.

The classroom that a bar of eco-soap built

One story from the previous period continues to resonate and deserves to be shared again, because it captures the spirit of this project better than any statistic. In the spring of 2025, students from the Trostianets Branch of Lyceum No. 3 in Sumy region — a frontline community that has endured relentless shelling — developed a project called "Ecological Soap for Children" and entered it in the STEM: Pathway to Innovation competition. They won. Their prize was a fully renovated Biology and Chemistry classroom, equipped with new microscopes, chemical reagents, a fume hood, and modern laboratory tools.

At the opening ceremony, the city's mayor said it best: seeing children develop a working ecological soap product is proof that learning can bring real benefit to the world. The school's director described the new classroom as "a real holiday." And the students — they could not wait to start actual laboratory research.

This is the impact your support makes possible: not just equipment, but the moment a girl looks through a microscope for the first time and thinks, maybe this is what I want to do with my life.

Looking ahead

The coming months will see the program expand its reach and deepen its focus on girls specifically. Planned next steps include new national STEM competitions and challenges designed for girls, extension of activities to additional regions of Ukraine, introduction of mentorship and role model components pairing girls with women working in science and technology, and continued teacher training in digital and innovative tools. The network of 71 regional program multipliers already covers nearly every oblast of Ukraine — giving us the infrastructure to scale quickly when funding allows.

Why your support matters right now

According to UNESCO, only 35% of students in technical fields globally are women. In Ukraine, less than 20% of schoolchildren still have access to quality STEM education — and the war has made that gap wider. Every donation to this project is a direct investment in closing it: in a renovated classroom where experiments are possible, in a competition that tells a girl her idea is worth something, in a mentorship session that introduces her to a woman who looks like her and works in engineering.

We are deeply grateful to the GlobalGiving community — your support is what keeps this work alive between the headlines. If you have not yet donated, please consider joining us today. And if you have already given, know that your contribution is still working: in a classroom in Sumy, in a girl who now knows what a fume hood is and what it is for, in a future that is still being built.

Together, let's make sure that when Ukraine rebuilds, girls are holding the tools.